In the beginning I believed that people combed through the content of Social Media web sites looking for those images and messages which should never have seen the light of day. I thought that there was an office somewhere that, filled with cubicles, had hundreds of people working to ensure that social networks remained clean, that nothing appeared which might upset our gentle sensibilities.

Gradually, as I got to know the various services – if one may call them that – better, it seemed to me that a piece of software, basic and largely untested, was at work. So many images, so much propaganda, so much filth continued to appear on Facebook, Twitter and many other sites. I saw child pornography, executions, abuse, to name but a few. Things which a normal human, someone like you and me, would find abhorrent and wish to wipe away from their gaze, from their memories. Social media, I decided, has become a source of income for those behind it, and a mechanism for getting propaganda out to the masses, of selling merchandise, of pushing an agenda.

Now I know better. The truth behind moderation on social media web sites, whether those who run it wish to admit it or not, is in the hands of humans to a great extent. People like you and me who sit in a cubicle and look at the worst of the human mind for eight hours a day, and are literally overwhelmed by what they see. And I feel sorry for them, but I also feel sorry for us, that there is a need for such moderation.